Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Author Topic: Where are the weak points?  (Read 14673 times)

Description:

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline HeiroglyphTopic starter

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jun 2010
  • Posts: 1100
    • Show only replies by Heiroglyph
Where are the weak points?
« on: September 26, 2014, 08:08:50 PM »
I'm new to this platform and enjoy writing software, but so far I'm not seeing a niche that isn't filled.

I've looked at the bounties on MorphZone, but none of them are particularly interesting.

Permedia 2 Rave3D driver - needs hardware I don't have
XServer - I disagree with ports
Instant Messenger - protocols constantly broken on purpose
FTP Client - aren't there 101 of these available?
GTK-to-MUI Wrapper - I disagree with ports and hate GTK
Spreadsheet Application - just plain boring

What do we need?

I may end up just using it as an Amiga 68k cross development platform.
 

Offline XDelusion

  • Alien Breeder
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Mar 2002
  • Posts: 5089
    • Show only replies by XDelusion
    • http://starwarslegacy.net/
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2014, 08:24:22 PM »
We do have DJ software if that is your thing. Also there is the latest release of Digibooster 3.1

http://tcheko.binaryriot.org/soundbankster/

http://www.amigashop.org/product_info.php?products_id=212&osCsid=ktjec8d52atu0c3b15qaq7g5p5


We've got some great 3D game engines such as Quake, Quake II, and Odamex, though no development tools that I'm aware of aside of Blender, but nothing in regards to mapping.

Hmmm, let's see.

Show girls is a great program for manipulating graphic images plus it can be used as a comic reader if your extract the images from your "CBR" first.
Earth has a lot of things other folks might want... like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made, like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and room for their way of life. - William S. Burroughs
 

Offline pVC

Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2014, 08:30:24 PM »
Just got a request of "graphical diff program, which compares text file line by line and allows you to copy lines to other file", or is there similar already? :)

OpenOffice port :)

Spotify client, but I guess that's hard unofficially?

Torrent client.

Some dropbox/whatever mount things? :)
Daily MorphOS user and Amiga active.
 

Offline Yasu

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Join Date: Mar 2012
  • Posts: 413
    • Show only replies by Yasu
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2014, 08:34:24 PM »
You can always suggest your own bounty if you can think out a project yourself :)
 

Offline XDelusion

  • Alien Breeder
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Mar 2002
  • Posts: 5089
    • Show only replies by XDelusion
    • http://starwarslegacy.net/
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2014, 08:52:52 PM »
Oh yes, we still need solid USB/MIDI support. We need to ditch AHI in favor of something more flexable, and yes Trident is also a major holding back factor in regards to external sound cards and what not.
Earth has a lot of things other folks might want... like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made, like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and room for their way of life. - William S. Burroughs
 

Offline Yasu

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Join Date: Mar 2012
  • Posts: 413
    • Show only replies by Yasu
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #5 on: September 26, 2014, 09:08:46 PM »
I want a better image manipulation program.

I like to make icons. So I would love a program that allows me to put a picture on top of another, with transparent background, can save as PNG and can handle rescaling. I've tried Art Effect 4 but I can't get that function to work.
 

Offline HeiroglyphTopic starter

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jun 2010
  • Posts: 1100
    • Show only replies by Heiroglyph
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #6 on: September 26, 2014, 09:34:01 PM »
I'm not even looking for a bounty, that was just a suggested place to look in my other thread.

I'm mainly looking for something I'll enjoy making that will be useful to myself and hopefully others.

As far as graphic and icon manipulation, aren't we pretty well covered between native MorphOS apps and Amiga apps?

I don't use MIDI personally, so I probably wouldn't know enough about the use cases to do it justice.
 

Offline amigadave

  • Lifetime Member
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Jul 2004
  • Posts: 3836
    • Show only replies by amigadave
    • http://www.EfficientByDesign.org
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #7 on: September 26, 2014, 09:37:02 PM »
Quote from: Heiroglyph;773979
I'm new to this platform and enjoy writing software, but so far I'm not seeing a niche that isn't filled.

I've looked at the bounties on MorphZone, but none of them are particularly interesting.

Permedia 2 Rave3D driver - needs hardware I don't have
XServer - I disagree with ports
Instant Messenger - protocols constantly broken on purpose
FTP Client - aren't there 101 of these available?
GTK-to-MUI Wrapper - I disagree with ports and hate GTK
Spreadsheet Application - just plain boring

What do we need?

I may end up just using it as an Amiga 68k cross development platform.

Contact Trevor Dickinson about his project to port Open Office/Libre Office to AmigaOS4.x and ask him if you could take their progress and make a version for MorphOS.  A good Office Suite is one of the most often requested software projects that many users ask for on MorphOS (or any Amiga inspired platform).  Yes, it might be a boring project, but we really need it.  Another alternative is fixing or improving printer drivers/support.  It seems like many users have trouble getting good print results from their MorphOS systems, while others state that it works quite well for them.

Any software project that makes it easier for average users to get into programming on MorphOS themselves would be beneficial to everyone in the long run.  Something like Visual Basic, or a re-write of AMOS with enhancements and modern features would be great for untrained bedroom coders to get back to creating software content for MorphOS.

Personally I would like a better, simpler video editing package for MorphOS and with your background with NewTek (IIRC), maybe you could do something with the Open Source code for the Toaster/Flyer to create something new for MorphOS.

I would love to see a new, or improved 2D, or 3D CAD program for MorphOS.  I do a fair amount of drafting and design work on my Windows systems, and would love to switch to using MorphOS for that instead.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head.  Some might be probable candidates, while others are probably just pipe dreams.
How are you helping the Amiga community? :)
 

Offline itix

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Oct 2002
  • Posts: 2380
    • Show only replies by itix
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2014, 09:09:19 AM »
AHI replacement - forget it. Too much work for no gain.

Libre Office/Open Office - forget it. It is not enough to port LO/OO but you must also maintain port next ten years. And for starters I really recommend considering something easier in smaller scale. And not to mention to get there you might have to port some dependencies first i.e. boring (although the MorphOS team could help you there). But I really recommend starting with something else.

GTK-MUI - I think it took wrong approach. It should have been GDK-MUI project so you could build GTK out of the box with native widgets. It also has lot of dependencies (pango, glib etc) making it quite boring.

Graphical diff utility could be nice.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2014, 09:11:30 AM by itix »
My Amigas: A500, Mac Mini and PowerBook
 

Offline Manu

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Join Date: Feb 2004
  • Posts: 252
    • Show only replies by Manu
    • http://www.cartoonspace.net
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #9 on: September 27, 2014, 10:26:29 AM »
Quote from: Heiroglyph;773979
I'm new to this platform and enjoy writing software, but so far I'm not seeing a niche that isn't filled.


At least on AROS I'd like something to cut / Join videos add text slides with that has transition effects etc. something like Windows Movie Maker. Maybe there's something in the Linux open source world to port, i don't know.
AmigaOS or MorphOS on x86 would sell orders of magnitude more than the current, hardware-intensive solutions. And they\\\'d go faster. --D.Haynie
__________________________________________
http://www.cartoonspace.net
 

Offline Kronos

  • Resident blue troll
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2002
  • Posts: 4017
    • Show only replies by Kronos
    • http://www.SteamDraw.de
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #10 on: September 27, 2014, 10:48:05 AM »
Quote from: Yasu;773986
So I would love a program that allows me to put a picture on top of another, with transparent background, can save as PNG and can handle rescaling.


Next version of SteamDraw will be able to do all that, bitmap rescaling done with antigrain-library so that should yield o.k. quality and all GFX you add by hand will be in vector anyways.
1. Make an announcment.
2. Wait a while.
3. Check if it can actually be done.
4. Wait for someone else to do it.
5. Start working on it while giving out hillarious progress-reports.
6. Deny that you have ever announced it
7. Blame someone else
 

Offline Yasu

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Join Date: Mar 2012
  • Posts: 413
    • Show only replies by Yasu
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #11 on: September 27, 2014, 11:08:43 AM »
Quote from: Kronos;774010
Next version of SteamDraw will be able to do all that, bitmap rescaling done with antigrain-library so that should yield o.k. quality and all GFX you add by hand will be in vector anyways.


Really? That would be cool! Will it be able to load and save PNG?
 

Offline Kronos

  • Resident blue troll
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2002
  • Posts: 4017
    • Show only replies by Kronos
    • http://www.SteamDraw.de
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #12 on: September 27, 2014, 12:12:55 PM »
Quote from: Yasu;774012
Will it be able to load and save PNG?


Things you can do with the current version:

a) draw an invisible rectangle (linewidth 0) and fill it with any bitmap loadable through datatypes.
(current versions will leave some artefacts if source bitmap has semi-transparent areas)
b) repeat as often as needed
d) Export as PNG with any resolution you need

With next version:
c) set background color to 100% transparent

Directly loading PNG is not supported as it's still a vector based app.

@Heiroglyph
If you want us to suggest you a coding project you should start with giving some pointers as to what skills you have and what kind of project you'd like.

Some small 10k utility or 100MB of sources ?

Game or app ?

Ported or all your own ?

Heavy on GUI or just interested in algorythms ?

etc etc
1. Make an announcment.
2. Wait a while.
3. Check if it can actually be done.
4. Wait for someone else to do it.
5. Start working on it while giving out hillarious progress-reports.
6. Deny that you have ever announced it
7. Blame someone else
 

Offline Yasu

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Join Date: Mar 2012
  • Posts: 413
    • Show only replies by Yasu
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #13 on: September 27, 2014, 12:20:15 PM »
@Kronos

Is there a way to convert PNG to vector gfx?
 

Offline Kronos

  • Resident blue troll
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2002
  • Posts: 4017
    • Show only replies by Kronos
    • http://www.SteamDraw.de
Re: Where are the weak points?
« Reply #14 on: September 27, 2014, 12:31:07 PM »
We are way offtopic here....

Converting only makes sense when the picture has few colors and clear shapes otherwise you be better of letting the bitmap scale up/down (SteamDraw will allways use the orginal resolution so nothing lossy bout that).

If you still want to convert you should either use autotrace or maybe even better XTrace (http://www.amigafuture.de/downloads.php?view=detail&df_id=5092).
Note will take ages on big multicolored images and results may vary. At the last Geit@home we traced a FullHD Princess Peach from MarioKart8 with XTrace and it took 2 hours (AFAIR), result was o.k..
1. Make an announcment.
2. Wait a while.
3. Check if it can actually be done.
4. Wait for someone else to do it.
5. Start working on it while giving out hillarious progress-reports.
6. Deny that you have ever announced it
7. Blame someone else